LONDON -- There are international trade disputes about steel or telecommunications, but as the gathering debate about trade in genetically modified food makes clear, there is nothing quite as intense as an argument about food. Similarly, there are domestic political scandals about money or sex, but as the food contamination problems in Belgium, Britain, Hong Kong or Malaysia have shown, food can become high politics. Why is food so contentious?
The easiest answer is that food disputes seem to immediately stimulate a wider range of controversies. For example, in the case of GM food, it is evident that at the core of all the concern is a still underdeveloped debate about the genetic revolution. Scientists understand that we stand on the brink of a great revolution -- the ability to remake major parts of the human body and the living world around us -- but the general public is not ready for the leap into a complex field of choices that this revolution entails.
The argument that crops should not be genetically modified so we can use fewer pesticides should strike most people as perverse. But the media can keep a straight face when discussing the risks of "Frankenstein foods" because, deep down, people in democratic countries cannot decide how far and how fast the genetic revolution should be allowed to go.